In one way Stanley Kubrick's [A Clockwork Orange] is cheering. This time, as in all his work before 2001, he sticks to a narrative, depicts character, opts for "literary humanism"—does all the things that some critics claimed he had deliberately abandoned, in the space picture, for a new esthetics. Perhaps the new esthetics was only a wobble? Revised editions of various pronunciamentos may now be in order.

But there isn't a great deal more to celebrate in A Clockwork Orange. Certainly there are some striking images; certainly there is some impudent wit, some adroitness. But the worst flaw in the film is its air of cool intelligence and ruthless moral inquiry, because those elements are least fulfilled. Very early there are hints of triteness and insecurity, and before the picture is a half-hour old, it begins to slip into tedium. Sharp and glittery though it continues to be...